


tell me secrets ('cause i know you're scared)

by aureoliin



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: (does it count as heavy angst?), Heavy Angst, I'm Sorry, M/M, Minor Scott McCall, What Have I Done, and it's intense derek hale angst, i don't know how to tag things, im sorry bby, my first ao3 fic, um, what is this lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2016-11-21
Packaged: 2018-09-01 05:28:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8610550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aureoliin/pseuds/aureoliin
Summary: Derek drifted. He didn't notice himself losing consciousness, but he closed his eyes for a second and suddenly Stiles was talking about something else.Stiles kept talking, as if he didn't notice Derek fading, and Derek wondered how Stiles' throat wasn't closing up, how the boy wasn't choking on smoke.





	

Derek huffed out a pained laugh, despite the burning in his lungs.

_Of course._

Of course, after everything that had happened, everything he had done. Of course this would be how he died.

Cosmic irony, Laura would have said. Or something like that. Laura would have laughed about his bad luck; was the first of the two of them to be able to make a joke again after -

Well. After.

Then again, Derek always thought Laura used her quick wit and her cutting humor to mask her own pain. It was something the two of them had had in common, this inability to vocalize the hurt. They had gone about it differently, though, and sometimes Derek wondered if they had been able to talk about it, if things could have been different, if Laura could have -

If. If. If.

"Hey, big guy."

Derek's eyes snapped open, head jerking towards the sound of the familiar voice.

Stiles.

Stiles, who reminded Derek so much of Laura. His sister would have liked Stiles, Derek thought. Would have teased her younger brother relentlessly about the stubborn boy. They would have gotten along.

"Derek. Derek, are you listening to me?"

Derek shook himself, as well as he could. Stiles was standing just out of reach, shrouded in smoke, flames jumping around him but somehow not touching him.

Derek should have been able to hear his approach, should have been able to smell him, he thought absently. Then again, with the smoke and the flames crowding his senses, it was hard for him to register anything but his impending death.

"Derek! Sourwolf. You still there?"

Stiles was shaking him. Derek was fading in and out of consciousness, and Stiles was kneeling on the charred floorboards beside him, hands on his shoulders.

"Stiles," Derek croaked. His throat felt like it was on fire. _Hah_ , he thought. _On fire_.

Stiles cracked the smallest of smiles. "Yeah, big guy. I'm here."

Forcing himself to remain conscious, Derek scanned the teenager's body quickly. He was unhurt. For now.

Derek grabbed at Stiles' wrists weakly. "You need to get out of here."

Stiles frowned. "I don't think so, sourwolf. You aren't getting rid of me that easily." He paused, looking down at Derek. "Don't even try your big bad Alpha tricks on me. You know that won't work."

The crackling was getting louder. The fire was moving closer, Derek registered absently. It shouldn't have been moving this slowly at all, a part of him whispered, but he ignored it. Stiles was more important.

"Stiles," he tried, "you shouldn't even be here. You're supposed to be at Stanford. Why are you here?"

Stiles sighed, lowering himself to sit next to Derek on the floor; casually, as if the house around them wasn't on fire. As if they weren't both about to go down in flames, just like the rest of Derek's family.

Stiles was going to die, just like everyone else Derek had ever loved.

"I'm here because of you, big guy. You think I'm just going to leave you here, alone?"

_Everyone else does,_ Derek didn't say. Instead, he rasped out, "What about your dad? Scott? They're more important than me."

Stiles closed his eyes, frustrated. "Can't you just accept that I want to be here, with you, in this fucking burning house?"

"Please, Stiles. Leave. You don't deserve to die here."

Stiles snorted. Derek sometimes loved and sometimes hated how stubborn the boy was; this time, he definitely hated it.

"I told you," Stiles retorted, reaching for Derek's hand carefully, "I won't leave you. You can't make me."

There were flames at the doorway, now. Stiles couldn't leave if he wanted to. The last of the fight rushed out of Derek, along with a pained breath. Stiles' hand was cool in his, like it shouldn't have been in a room that was on fire.

Derek pushed it to the back of his mind, and the two sat in silence, listening to the fire crackle and slowly (so, so slowly) devour the room.

Derek cleared his throat harshly. How the smoke hadn't killed him yet, he wasn't certain. "Talk," he whispered.

Stiles laughed lightly, as if he didn't realize they were both dying. As if he didn't care. "I thought you hated me talking, sourwolf. You always tell me to shut up."

Derek closed his eyes, willing himself to stay conscious just a little longer, even as the blackness at the edges of his mind threatened to pull him under. "Like hearing your voice," he breathed out. "Not a bad last thing to hear."

Stiles squeezed his hand, and started talking. He talked about meeting Scott, about his mother's death, about Lydia. Then he talked about that night in the woods, about those tenuous first weeks, about growing to care about the werewolf he met. He talked about leaving Beacon Hills, about missing the pack, missing Derek.

Derek drifted. He didn't notice himself losing consciousness, but he closed his eyes for a second and suddenly Stiles was talking about something else. Stiles kept talking, as if he didn't notice Derek fading, and Derek wondered how Stiles' throat wasn't closing up, how the boy wasn't choking on the smoke like Derek.

The next time he came back to himself, Stiles was still talking, even though flames were licking at Derek. For some reason, Stiles wasn't affected. Derek couldn't summon the presence of mind to question it.

He could, however, hear voices, distantly, past the cracking and hissing of the fire.

"Derek! Derek! Derek?! This isn't funny! Derek!"

The voices were so far away, and the fire was so loud. It sounded like Scott and...

Stiles?

But that couldn't be. Stiles was here, with Derek. Burning to death, except he wasn't, and Derek couldn't figure out why. He was barely conscious enough to tell what was happening, when the Stiles sitting beside him leaned over him, and a distant part of him said that the next time he closed his eyes, he wouldn't open them again.

"Derek," the Stiles who was now crouched above him, as if shielding him from the flames, whispered.  "Derek, I love you."

Derek closed his eyes. "Love you, too," he murmured.

Lips that felt like fire descended upon his, and he finally let go of his grasp on reality. It felt like fire, like heat, like searing pain.

A howl, from somewhere far away. Scott.

Stiles screamed.

"Derek!"

**Author's Note:**

> My first foray into writing Teen Wolf fanfiction, and it's this.  
> I'm sorry. I don't know what it is, either.  
> (title is from the song California by Yellowcard)


End file.
